


The Mysteries of Marcie Fleach: Chapter 8-The Infested

by Sketchpad



Series: The Mysteries Of Marcie Fleach [8]
Category: Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated (TV 2010)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-11 12:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7052386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sketchpad/pseuds/Sketchpad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is bugging the rich of Crystal Cove. Can Marcie and the gang stamp out this infestation of trouble, or will they be exterminated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The hostess, a wealthy woman, one of several in Crystal Cove's moneyed section of town, raised her crystal glass in celebration of the party she was hosting.

After the perfunctory applause, another woman, Rebecca Lander, was having a conversation with Nan Blake. She took a sip of her Merlot and placed her glass down on the coaster that protected an antique table. She then straightened the portable oxygen tank that was painted to match her dress and that she wore over her shoulder like a purse, then took a deep breath from its mask.

Nan Blake gracefully plucked a glass from the wandering butler's silver tray, then glanced admiringly at the tank.

"I have to say, Rebecca," she commented. "Not many people can wear hospital equipment well, but you actually pull it off."

"Well, I figure, if I have to wear this thing to help me breathe, it might as well be fashionable," the woman said before taking another draw from the mask.

"Blasted asthma. I swear," Lander muttered. "But nevermind me. Has your, oh, which one is it? Oh, Daphne, that's the one. Has she ever come back home?"

Nan's face fell a bit from the reminder, but she remembered the setting she was in, so she brightened and casually laughed out an explanation.

"Oh, no. She hadn't come back, but she does get in touch with Barty and me, every so often."

Inwardly, Nan felt pleased that what was said was buoyed with some measure of confidence, in that it wasn't a lie. She appreciated the invite to the party, but Lander didn't need to know more than that, she felt.

She adored all of her daughters, whether they seemed like complete lay-abouts, or, like Daphne, had the real potential to make something of herself, but it continually stunned her as to the reason for the sudden departure.

It could never be adequately explained to her or her husband's satisfaction when Daphne would call them. Some nights, it felt like it took everything she had not to call the police, the FBI, or her therapist when she thought of her youngest child.

Nan stopped her troubled train of thought when she thought that she heard Lander say something to her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Did you say something, Rebecca?"

"Your daughter," Lander replied. "Wasn't she going to marry that boyfriend of hers, uh, Freddy James?"

"Jones, dear," Nan corrected. "She was, but that might be why she went with him. So they could see if they were ready or not. Best to shake the cobwebs out, before the 'I do's', I suppose."

Nan inwardly shrugged at that explanation. It sounded as good as anything else she had heard from Daphne, so far.

_'For someone who's short of breath,'_ she thought. _'She certainly has enough of it to ask a lot of questions.'_ She just wished the old busybody would change the subject and move on to mingle with the rest of the other filthy rich guests.

Lander opened her mouth after a lungful of air and was ready to ask another question in the quest to be sociable, when Nan's prayers were answered in the form of the hostess's butler approaching her from the spacious kitchen.

"Yes, Baker. What is it?" the hostess asked.

"Ma'am," he reported. "I do believe that we're out of those dipping chips that you love so much. I do apologize for not buying enough, Ma'am."

The hostess gave a confident chuckle, more to give the air of being in control of the party than anything else. "That's quite alright, Baker. There's more in the pantry. It's my personal stash. I'll get them."

After the issue had been resolved, Miss Lander decided that she wasn't going to get any more gossip from Nan, so she finally excused herself. "I'll be right back, Nan. Have to mingle, and all of that, and then we can get back to chatting about your family."

Miss Lander then walked away from a grateful Nan Blake, who then decided to actually follow the other woman's example and glided deeper into the mingling groups of the soiree'.

The hostess walked into her tastefully built and full appointed kitchen, thinking of how she would present her secret stash to the guests. Would they appreciate them? What to say when she brought them out. Everything had to be as it should be. Flawless in presentation.

_'Ah,'_ she thought. _'A crystal bowl for my lovelies. Nothing but the best.'_

With a satisfied smile on her lined face, the hostess approached her pantry.

Nothing but the best.

She turned the handle. The door swung open to the appearance of a literal cascade of cockroaches that proceeded to fall on her screeching body and flow across the kitchen's tiled floor.

Again, the hostess cried out in horror, risking some of the insects to fall into her open mouth as she backed away, shivering as she tried to brush and jump to loosen the grip of the little offenders and shake them off her, otherwise, glamorous evening dress and hair.

Almost insane with the purest of disgust, the hostess would have said, if she wasn't screaming for her butler and watching the cockroach army already making camp in the kitchen and heading out for the living room and elsewhere to thoroughly ruin her social standing in town, that this party was anything but the best.

* * *

Marcie, in a striped bikini, looked up at the ceiling, trying to blank her mind as she rested on a soft, floating, inflatable bed while she drifted slowly across the Blakes' indoor pool.

With its outdoor columns, small arcade, topiary, and a mammoth, golden head propped up at one end of the pool to keep watch over all that transpired, Marcie's always ticking mind couldn't help but think that the decor was done in a subtly tasteful Mediterranean style.

"The party was a total disaster," Nan gossiped to her daughter, Daisy, while she lounged on a comfortable deck chair. Daisy hung onto every word while she stood in the water and hung onto the edge of the pool.

"Can you imagine it?" Nan continued. "Roaches everywhere. In the china, in the crystal...in the food! People were dancing all over the house and the music wasn't playing, if you know what I mean. Stamp, stamp, stamp. Stamp, stamp, stamp."

Instead of revulsion, however, Daisy laughed it off. "Ha! You should see some of the things I ran into when I dumpster dive. I've seen worse."

Her mother still held onto her abhorrence and shook her head in decision. "Well, I'm not taking any chances. I hired the best exterminator in town. He shows no mercy to those creatures and he's here to give our home a clean bill of health. That why I invited you and Marcie here to the pool with me while he worked."

"Well, I certainly appreciate it, Mrs. Blake," said Marcie, bobbing along. "But, y'know, Mrs. B, if you ever do have pests in your house, I can whip up an insecticide that'll have them meet their maker at least forty-six percent faster than the leading chemicals used. And since I live in town, you can have it for free."

Nan, not understanding, gave Marcie a troubled glance at her from underneath her sunglasses. Obviously, Daisy's little friend had a lot to learn about this wide, wild world of theirs.

"Dear," Nan "educated" her. "Free is nice for...some people, but what's the point of having money if you can't buy the best?"

Marcie took what was said in stride and shrugged. Here, in the Blake Mansion, it was a rich person's world and she was just floating temporarily in it.

Just then, a jumpsuited man marched through the pool's entrance. He looked for and found Nan, then said, "Ma'am, I finished checking the mansion. No bugs in here, at all. You're a clean as a whistle."

Nan tilted her head casually at the exterminator and gave him a satisfied nod. "Wonderful. My husband will write you a check right away."

"Hey, Mrs. Blake," Marcie said. "Why don't you call that hostess and suggest that she hire him? If he's good enough for you then he should good enough for her, right?"

The exterminator stood a little taller from the unexpected endorsement and gave Marcie a friendly thumbs-up.

"Thanks, kid," he said. "I could do with a few more rich customers, but I heard that some other outfit beat me to it and checked her house before her shindig. From the way things went down last night, that lady would've been better off with a can of bug spray and an old shoe."

Pleased with his witty bon mot, he regarded Nan once more. "Well, I gotta go. Take care, Mrs. Blake," he said with visions of a fat paycheck dancing through his head. He then left the women to their lounging.

Nan looked down towards her daughter and asked, "Daisy, could you be a dear and drive by the hostess's house, just to check on her. The poor dear's been through a lot."

Daisy started to sulk a little in her spot in the water. She liked it here and couldn't think of any reason to leave it. In fact, if her mother hadn't suggested that they come with her to the pool at the last minute, she would have turned it into a pool party and invited everyone she knew, especially Red Herring.

That thought brought a slightly naughty smirk to her lips and she found herself disregarding her mother's errand, imagining, instead, the chesty, muscular red-head in the tightest swimwear she could conjure up in her mind.

"Dear," Nan said, noticing the glazed gaze in her daughter's eyes. "Did you hear me?"

"Huh?" Daisy shook her head, exorcising the spirits of lust from her mind. "Ugh! How come I have to go?" she sighed.

"She's a dear friend of mine and I want her to know that even though her party self-destructed in the worst possible way and chances are high that no one will ever accept one of her invites again, I still understand, as a good friend should," Nan explained smoothly.

"Then, why don't _you_ go?" Daisy asked.

Genuine shock shone on Nan's face. "And have people see me with her? Are you kidding me?" Daisy rolled her eyes.

"So much for solidarity," she muttered, then glanced over to her still reclining friend and sighed, "C'mon, Marcie. Let's go."

Marcie, with reluctance, rolled off the bed into the water and swam across the pool to catch up with a disinclined Daisy as she climbed out.


	2. Chapter 2

"Why did you decide to come with us, Red?" Daisy asked, not really caring about the answer.

"Advertisement," he explained. "When Aunt Hedda found out that you guys were going up to where the rich folks live, she had me go out with you to see if anybody out there might need the unique mechanical services of "Hedda's Hot Rod and Motorcycle Repair." Not to solve any of those weird mysteries we keep running into."

"No promises," Marcie said while steering the putting, out-of-place Clue Cruiser through the affluent residential neighborhood where the hostess was said to live.

"We're almost there," Daisy instructed Marcie.

"All of these big houses look the same to me," Jason opined from the back seat, watching the mansions and townhouses go by and, despite what he just said, finding himself quietly fascinated by this side of society that he had only read, seen televised, and heard about; his true reason for joining in this sojourn.

"They'd have to be big," Red joked. "They knew you were coming."

Jason ignored Red's guffaw. "Ha, ha. Another fat joke. You should write a book."

Stopped his chortling long enough to answer back. "Maybe I will,"

"Just so you know, publishers don't accept crayon," Jason shot back.

In Red's automotive world, his face went from grinning to sour in 1.6 seconds. He reached over, held Jason's head in a adamantine head-lock and proceeded to noogie him properly across the scalp.

Marcie, hearing the commotion, glanced in vexation up into the rear view mirror. "You want me to turn around, you two?"

Thoughts of failing his aunt's mission suddenly tamed Red. He released Jason and went back to his side of the backseat. Jason, for his part, didn't want to miss out on telling his online friends about his trip to Crystal Cove's rich quarter, and so, sat quietly.

"That's better," Marcie muttered. Then, up ahead, she saw an immense, striped tent standing proudly, if incongruously, on a manicured lawn.

"What's that?" she asked to herself. "Did the circus come to town?"

"I don't know," Daisy replied. "This is the street where the hostess's house is supposed to be."

Marcie reduced her speed so she could take a better look at the tent as she passed it, but then Daisy shouted, forcing Marcie to hit the brakes. "Wait! That's it! That's the address."

Marcie put the car into park behind the open loading doors of an exterminator's company van. Spotting the closest of a small cadre of jumpsuited exterminators in gas masks tooling around the tent's exterior, Marcie called out to him.

"Hey, what's going on? Are you guys fumigating?"

The worker, whose sewn name on his uniform was Conrad, walked across the lawn and approached the VW to be heard. He pulled off his mask and said to her, "Yes. You have to get clear of here."

"The woman who lives here, where is she?" asked Daisy.

"I don't know," Conrad shrugged. "She told us before we got here that she was going to leave town for a while. We were hired to fumigate the house while she was gone."

"When will all of this be done?"

"Well, were done for the day," he explained. "We'll call to tell her it'll be safe to come back in about a week,"

Daisy rolled her eyes, sarcastically "happy" that she wasted her time coming out here. "So much for that," she sighed. "Maybe Mom'll call Miss Lander and ask her to get in touch with the hostess."

Strangely, the exterminator perked up and asked, "Lander? Rebecca Lander?"

"Yeah, my mom knows her," said Daisy. "They were at the hostess's party last night. Why?"

The exterminator brightened. "She's my aunt!"

"Really? Small world, huh?"

"Then that means that your mother must be Mrs. Blake," Conrad figured.

"Guilty as charged," Daisy quipped. "How do you know?"

"My aunt talks about her all the time."

Red fumed in the backseat, being too much of a gentleman to intrude on the conversation, but also too jealous not to see how platonic the chat was, mocking Conrad's voice under his breath.

Conrad took off his gas mask and tossed it through the open doors of the company van to a co-worker who stood in its back.

"How's your mom doing?" he asked, but before the answer came, something else stole their attention.

"Look out! came the scream from the rear of the van as a large canister of fumigant rolled out from the rear of it. All of their notice zeroed in on the hefty bug bomb as it tumbled out and, regretfully, landed up-side down, breaching its release mechanism and voiding its toxic contents between both vehicles and their occupants.

"Close the doors!" Conrad ordered the co-worker, who complied quickly. That only left the kids.

"Get outta..." Conrad said before his breath and legs failed him under the fumigant's swift, chemical assault, since he was closer to the van, and thus, the ruptured can.

Marcie fished into her jacket pocket while she gave commands to the backseat. "Red, grab Conrad and pull him in with you!"

Thoughts of envy flew from his mind as the teen opened the rear door and jumped out, running over and clutching the exterminator by the arms, hauling him to the car as fast as he could from the miasma that was now starting to angle towards his friends due to a shift in the wind.

Red stuffed the man roughly into Jason, just as the rotund boy rolled up the window on his side and screeched that everyone do the same. He also added that Marcie pull up the roof of the VW convertible in the general vicinity of her ringing ears.

Marcie snatched an Insta-Ice capsule and pitched it hard against the street next to the split canister, then she hit the button that sealed the fabric roof over the Clue Cruiser and rolled up her window just as the scent of the insecticide was beginning to slip into the car.

The liquid contents of the capsule splashed free on the can, creating a frozen fist of thick ice that closed around it and entombed it in its frigid depths. Choked off from spewing more of the gas, what remained in the air was carried off under the strong breezes of the day, and was soon dissipated high above the stately neighborhoods.

Marcie started the car and pulled away from the van just to be safe, parking it a few blocks away.

"Is everyone alright?" she asked. When her friends answered in the affirmative, she told everyone to roll down their windows to let fresher air in while she folded down the car's roof.

Amidst the collective sighs of a close call, a low moan could be heard from the back as Conrad finally roused himself from the near-poisoning.

"What happened?" he slurred on his way back to full consciousness. "What happened to...the bomb?"

"We took care of it," Daisy reassured him.

Marcie, taking an experimental sniff of the air to test its quality, remembered the heavy pong of the fumigant that managed to get into the Cruiser. She leaned back on her seat to regard the fumigator.

"Not bad," Marcie critiqued on the insecticide, recognizing its main ingredient by scent alone. "Hydrogen cyanide?"

* * *

"I want to thank you all again for saving my nephew," Miss Lander said from her spacious living room's sofa. She drew a breath from her mask and then sipped from her chilled glass of iced tea with crushed mint leaf. "Do you know where he went?"

"He said that he was going to go home and rest," Marcie said. Lander nodded in understanding.

She and the others were seated on various couches and plush chairs, taking their ease with their own glasses of tea upon invitation, after Nan had told her what her daughter and friends had done while running her errand.

"Aww, it wasn't anything a he-man like me wouldn't have done," Red said, waving the gratitude away. "I just thoughtlessly jumped out of the car and did what I had to do."

Daisy gave an exasperated sigh, yet dismissed his egotism and focused on his actual bravery. He could have succumbed to the poison just as Conrad had when he rescued him, but he went out, anyway. He was coarse, at times, but also courageous, and in her eyes, worthy of her pursuit.

Marcie was about to put down her glass on the ornate table before them, when she saw a folded card nearby. Out of curiosity, she picked it up and read it.

"The Extinguisher will take your breath away?"

Whatever genteel manners Miss Lander wanted to project came to a crashing halt when she heard Marcie read the card.

"Put that down, please," she told her, trying to remove the steel from her voice and regretting ever leaving that where anyone could see it. "That's nothing for you to worry about."

Proving that curiosity, welcomed or not, could spread, Jason soon asked, "Who's The Extinguisher?"

"Sounds like a fire fighter," Marcie said, lightly.

"He's…anything but," Miss Lander found herself chiming in, resigning herself to answering them. It wasn't like they could actually be of any help. "He's a menace who's been plaguing my home. Always leaving these calling cards, completely stressing me and exacerbating my already bad asthma."

"How long has he been dropping you these cards?" Marcie asked.

"About three weeks, now. A card for every week."

"Why didn't tell my mom or the police?" Daisy asked her, next.

"I didn't tell your mother because she doesn't need to know everything about me," Lander hypocritically announced, then said more quietly. "And I haven't told the police because I don't need the scandal."

"I suppose I could look into it," Marcie volunteered, holding up the card between thumb and forefinger, thoughtfully. Her words were inspired by looking at a pending future of having nothing to do, especially since her father had put her on what he deemed "administrative leave," from the park. Meaning that she had suddenly been banned from there, if Winslow didn't have the heart to say so.

Yes, she was always happy that her mystery-solving was able to help people, but deep down, she had no true desire for it. It was always just a way to exercise her mind, keep boredom at bay, and secretly satisfy her need to perform in front of others by demonstrating that she was good at it.

All her offer did, however, was prompt Red and Jason to moan in frustration.

"Ugh! I told you I didn't come all this way for some dumb old mystery," Red groused in his seat. "Aunt Hedda gave me a mission to spread the gospel of "Hedda's Hot Rod and Motorcycle Repair," besides, we talked about this and you said, 'No, I promise."

"I said, _'No promises,'_ Hard-of-Herring," Marcie corrected.

"And you know what I'm like," Jason added. "I don't have to eat a lot of chicken to be one."

"Guys, I said _I_ could look into it," Marcie stressed to them. "You can do what you like." She looked over at Daisy, asking, "How about it? You wanna come along?"

Daisy gave a dismissive shrug. "Eh, it's something to do."

She could see Red and Jason soften in relief, thinking that they were off the hook, which was her cue to strike.

"Oh, Miss Lander, could you tell my friend just how important having contacts can be?" Marcie asked their hostess.

"Oh, yes," Miss Lander said, pedantically. "Having good contacts is the very bread and butter of society. Knowing the right people can get you far in life."

"And what kind of contacts could come from helping you with your little problem?" Marcie asked, coolly glancing over to Red. "Could the word be spread about a certain garage in town? How much business could be drummed up from just solving a little mystery, Red?"

Red was becoming his namesake as he tried to sputter a reply, realizing that he wasn't so dense that he didn't understand blackmail when he was the target of it.

"Aw, c'mon, Marcie," he balked. "I told you what my aunt said."

"I know. This will actually help," she coaxed. "Your aunt will have all the business she can handle once word spreads that you help a patron of the Crystal Cove elite."

Despite the fact that he knew that he wasn't of a deductive mind, Red couldn't see the flaws in her logic. This _would_ well and truly help the business and make Aunt Hedda deeply pleased. That made Red pleased enough.

"Alright," he sulked in submission, then glanced at Jason and said, "But he's gotta come along, too."

"Okay, " Marcie agreed.

Shocked, Jason asked, "How come?"

"You need the exercise," Red said, simply.


	3. Chapter 3

Marcie gave a knock on Conrad Lander's door, after following his aunt's directions in getting to his modest home.

The door opened, revealing the man in a sleeping robe. "Hey, how are you guys?"

"We just came from your aunt's place," Jason answered.

"How is she?" asked Conrad.

"Not good," Daisy said, hesitantly, not wanting the bearer of bad news.

Conrad's face paled and fell immediately. "Is she okay? Is she getting enough oxygen?" he asked, his voice raised an octave in worry. "She should've call me! Her doctor said that I should get myself a copy of her house key made so if anything happened to her, I can get to her fast."

"No. Nothing like that," Marcie said, raising her hands to placate. "She said that someone's been harassing her in her home. Someone called The Extinguisher."

"The Extinguisher?" Conrad echoed, leaning against the doorway in nervous exhaustion. "Why hasn't she told me about any of this?"

"She said that she hadn't told anyone about it. Something to do with scandal or something," Red replied with a shrug..

"It's just weird," Conrad muttered to himself. "The Extinguisher isn't real."

"What do you mean?" the gang asked in unison.

The man sighed and explained. "The story was that an exterminator who worked for my company, a long time ago, got this sweet gig at a rich woman's house getting rid of a nasty case of termites. Anyway, after he was done, and this was done without fumigating, by the way, that's how good he was, the woman signed the check and he went on his merry way. Turns out the check bounced so high, it probably reached Saturn. Now, the reputation he had around the company was that he never did work that wasn't paid in full, so, he didn't take it well."

"What happened?" asked an intrigued Jason.

"Well, he made this get-up, called himself The Extinguisher, and started harassing the women of the wealthy neighborhoods, starting with the one who stiffed him. No one could catch him, but like I said, he doesn't exist."

"Well, someone calling himself that believes he exists and he seems to be targeting your aunt." said Marcie.

Conrad gave a nod at this. "I'll call Aunt Rebecca about this and then I'll call the police." He was about to excuse himself to do this, when a troubling notion came to him. Why were these kids asking about this weirdo or involving themselves in his aunt's problems? "Wait. You guys aren't going after him, are you?"

"Well, we did say that we would look into it," Marcie told him, before thinking that she should have kept that to herself.

"You said _you_ would," Red pouted.

Conrad gave the gang a stern look in their eyes and said, "Look, guys. I don't what wacko is calling himself The Extinguisher, but stay away from him. Let the police handle him. No telling what he'll probably do to you if you mess with his fantasy."

* * *

"Well, we can't investigate from the side lines." Marcie said as the gang sat in the Clue Cruiser for a powwow after their meeting and warning from Conrad. "If this Extinguisher is only after Miss Lander, then we just need to stay close to her."

"Why don't we try asking her neighbors if they've seen anybody strange come near the house," Jason suggested. "If he comes in during the day, someone's bound to see him."

Marcie brightened at that suggestion. "Good idea! We'll split up and take a house to cover more ground. Let's go."

* * *

"Hello, sir," Jason asked the man when he opened the thick, oak front door to his palatial townhouse. Red, bored, stood away from the door, arms crossed, looking more like Jason's silent bodyguard than his partner. "We were wondering, have you seen anybody unusual coming near Miss Lander's home?"

"Nah, not really," said the home owner. "But she must have a bad case of bugs in her house."

"Why?"

He shrugged while he thought. "Because every so often, I see this exterminator come inside her house. He must work fast, because he doesn't stay there long."

"Do you know what he looks like?" Jason questioned.

"From across the street, I can't make out a face or anything, but he does wear these red goggles and a gas mask. Probably to protect himself from all the bug spray he uses." He then looked anxiously back into his house. "If that's all, I've gotta go. I have to check up on my stock portfolio."

"Oh, you're an investor, huh?" Jason asked him.

"Oh, no. It's just my favorite soap opera. _My Stock Portfolio_. It's about this greedy family of investors. I've gotta go."

"Thank you, sir." Jason said to the soon closed door. Red turned from the house to catch up with the girls and report on their progress, when he saw the front door of Miss Lander's house open. Out stepped a man, an exterminator, by the look of him, wearing a tank on his back, a nozzle gun in his gloved hand, and red-tinted goggles that obscured his eyes from that distance.

"Holy crap," Red breathed in shocked luck. "It's him!"

"Hey! He's here!" he called out to the others from the house they were engaged in, then bolted across the street to capture the stranger. "He's here! I see him!

"Red, where are you going?" Jason asked, loosing his cool, altogether. "Don't go after him! You heard what Conrad said!"

"Conrad's not the boss of me!" Red countered as he closed in on the man, who now saw Red charging down on him. He closed the door, bounded down the tiled walkway and ran hard down the quiet street, Red still in pursuit.

The two girls cut their questioning short and flew from the porch of the house they were standing in front of, joining Red by taking an intercepting angle across the street to meet him in the chase.

The Extinguisher dared to spare a glance behind him to see not just one burly teen gaining on him, but two girls bringing up the rear. Who were they and what did they know about him?

Tightening his grip on the tank's nozzle gun, he quickly thought of an avenue of escape without engaging with them physically. They were close enough.

Not stopping his flight, he swung the nozzle to point behind him and pulled the trigger. A dusty cloud of dark particles blasted from the barrel, straight into the faces and torsos of his would-be capturers.

Red, Daisy and Marcie halted in their tracks, coughing, gagging and trying to wipe their faces clean of the tank's contents, while The Extinguisher accelerated away and was soon not to be seen.

"What is this...crap?" Daisy hacked.

"I...don't know," Marcie gasped. "But it doesn't...smell like it was insecticide." For that, she was grateful. Hydrogen cyanide, to bugs and to humans, was lethal to a horrific degree.

"I had...him," Red coughed. "If he hadn't pulled that...smoke screen trick on us, I would've been...all over him like Jason on a T-bone."

"More fat jokes?" Jason asked, smoothly, walking up to meet them. "I'm surprised you still have the breath for it. What happened?"

"He got away, obviously," Red groused. "After shooting some dust in our faces. What a cheap trick." He began to brush off the solid particulates from his clothes and upon looking down to check on his progress, saw the carcasses of dead roaches on his jacket, shirt and possibly hair.

And then a sound issued from Red that none of his compatriots ever heard from him before. A high-pitched scream.

"Ahh! Yuck!" he shrieked, more anxious than ever to pound this troublesome Extinguisher into the dirt. "Roaches!"

Red slipped out of his jacket as if it were on fire, beating it against the ground to knock the already deceased vermin from it. Once he was satisfied that the jacket was free of them, he used it to self-flagellate himself to clean the front of his shirt off.

The girls looked down upon their own clothes and could see the same thing. Dead roaches and the dust from their dried droppings.

After the initial looks of mild disgust and confusion faded from their expressions, they brushed themselves off, preferring not to screech like a red-headed banshee, with Marcie quickly puzzled as to why this ex-exterminator would have something like that in his tank.

"C'mon, guys," she told them. "Let's go check Miss Lander's house for clues."

The rest heartily agreed and followed her back to where the air was clean and clear of exanimate insects.

* * *

The one thing they noticed upon walking some length the house interior was that Miss Lander wasn't in it. However, they were only prowling through its downstairs and even though the gang made some noise in their search, they were also cognizant on how deathly quiet the place was.

"Well," Daisy said, standing at the foot of the stairs. "We check everywhere down here. All that's left is...the upstairs."

Jason noticed the pause before 'the upstairs.' Daisy's little joke to scare him. Well, it was succeeding. He had no qualms about staying downstairs while the rest of the group ran into whatever evil was left behind by the tank-carrying criminal.

Marcie walked passed Daisy and set about trekking up the stairs. It was daylight and The Extinguisher was gone. That gave her the confidence to go it alone up there, if need be. She just hoped that when she reached the master bedroom, Miss Lander, or rather, her corpse, wasn't found there.

After calling Jason a jellyfish, Red went next, flexing the muscles in his right arm, for good measure, followed by Daisy.

Marcie reached the top and looked around. No traps or anything she could see that could impede them.

"Spread out," she told them. "Check all of the guest rooms and bathrooms. We'll check her bedroom last."

They did as told, each one moving silently into a guest bedroom with a slow swing of their doors. Although each was immaculate, they were also empty.

The group, minus Jason, rendezvoused in the hallway that led to the master bedroom at the end of it.

"No one in there," Daisy reported.

"Yeah, there's nobody here," Red concurred.

"Okay, then," Marcie sighed with inner dread. "The master bedroom, we go."

The three teens crept up to the bedroom, which was barred from them by a closed door. With a quiet gulp, Marcie slowly twisted the doorknob and the door opened.

The room was wide, neat, gloriously lit by the sunlight coming from its ornate windows, and, to Marcie, if everyone's relief, corpse-free.

"Hey, check it out," Red said, pointing at the made up, queen-sized bed. Daisy went to it and picked up the folded card that sat upon it.

"The Extinguisher will smother your dreams..." she read.

Marcie held her chin in thought. "I think I'm seeing a pattern, here, guys. Both of the cards that we've seen so far have him talking about taking your breath away and now smothering. I think he wants to choke her to death."

Daisy, and even Red, looked at Marcie in quiet shock, suggesting that something so dark...so foul...could be committed. Marcie happened to have noticed the looks.

She held up a hand to placate her friends, saying, "But, of course, that's just a theory."

"I'm afraid it's no theory, young lady," came the voice of Miss Lander entering the room with Jason following closely. "He means me no good and..." Her breath gave out suddenly and she was too slow to reach for her mask, causing her to cough violently.

Daisy took a heaving Miss Lander over to the bed, where she sat while Daisy gave her the mask, once her hacking fit subsided.

"I told you," Miss Lander said to the gang when she recovered enough. "He's slippery and always strikes at me alone. Always when I leave the house. Maybe I should get a home security system just for my peace of mind."

Another voice was heard from downstairs. A male voice.

"Aunt Rebecca? Are you home? It's me, Conrad!"

"Up here, dear!" Miss Lander responded, nursing her breath mask, nervously.

He ran upstairs and reached her room quickly. What he didn't expect to see were four teenagers.

"What are you guys doing here?" he asked.

Red jumped in. "Dude, that Extinguisher guy was real! He really is targeting your aunt, man. We had the jump on him, but got away." He made sure to omit anything that had to do with those disgusting roaches.

Conrad turned to his aunt to confirm all of this. "Is this true, Aunt Rebecca? He's after you?"

"I'm afraid so, dear," his aunt answered slowly.

"I called here earlier, but you didn't pick up the phone, so I came here.

"I was at the hair dresser's" she explained, meekly, feeling like a girl getting scolded by her father.

"In any case, this settles it. You're moving in with me until this whole thing blows over," Conrad decided. "He can drop all of the cards he wants, but you won't be here to read them."

Marcie's hand went to her chin again in thought, but this time, she said nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a week after Miss Lander had left home that the gang went to visit her at her nephew's house. A week of relative quiet in which they hadn't heard any reports of The Extinguisher subtly terrorizing the woman with home invasion and card-delivered threats.

Today, Lander entertained her guests in the living room by telling them about her transition from posh townhouse to more humbler digs, but being quick to also tell them that Conrad was a godsend for doing what he did, finally giving her peace of mind that she couldn't find recently.

"Where's Conrad, now?" asked Daisy.

"Oh, he's at work and while he's working, the least I can do is tidy his home for him."

"That's pretty thoughtful, ma'am," Red commented. "Family's important, after all."

"I agree, dear."

"Well, if anything happens, if you see any more cards or anything, you let us know," Marcie instructed amiably before remembering that Miss Lander's nephew had as much, if not more, right to know what was going on. "I mean, _after_ you let your nephew know first."

"I will, dear," Lander told her. "Well, I better get back to work. At least I can watch the stories on TV, although this basic cable package leaves much to be desired."

* * *

Satisfied with that, the gang took their leave and piled into Marcie's car. However, Marcie didn't start it up, yet.

"Let's go back to Miss Lander's house one more time," Marcie suggested.

"Geez, what for, Marcie?" Red spoke up. "That Extinguisher guy doesn't know where she lives, right now. Why keep digging around for something that's pretty much over and done with?"

Marcie rolled her eyes. "Just because he doesn't know where she lives, now, doesn't mean that he's not looking for her. Remember, he singled her out, so, I don't think he's gonna quit, now."

"But, how would going back to her house help?" Jason asked. "We already know about the cards."

Marcie gave a concerned look and reasoned, "Yeah, I know, but there might be something we overlooked back there. Like I learned in Chemistry class, 'formulate twice, mix once.'"

She was expecting everyone to voice a dissenting opinion on the matter, since the boys were the most vocal, however, a smile grew when Daisy spoke on behalf of rechecking the townhouse.

"I think Marcie's right, guys," Daisy agreed. "We should go back. What will it hurt? Besides, Miss Lander's a friend of my family. If we can help her, at all, we should. It's the right thing to do. How about it?"

Red and Jason considered what was said. Then they shrugged and bowed their heads slightly in shame. Being called out of their indifference and cowardice with such a soft appeal as Daisy's was unexpected and quite convincing.

"When you put it like that, I guess we have to go," Jason acquiesced.

"Yeah," Red mumbled. "Okay, we'll go."

Marcie turned the key into the ignition with a satisfied smirk. "Let's hear it for democracy. Miss Lander's, it is."

* * *

The house's front door yielded to one of Marcie's Quick Keys, prompting Red to joke, "You can get in pretty fast with that goop of yours. Are you sure _you're_ not The Extinguisher?"

Marcie smirked. "If you see a jar of roaches with a card delivered to your house, you'll get your answer. Now, c'mon. We don't need neighbors knowing that we're doing a B&E on the same house that someone else did a week ago."

_'When this is all said and done,'_ she thought. _'I have to remind Miss Lander to change all the locks.'_

The group moved in, closed the door behind them and spread out, scanning the wall-to-wall carpeting with sharp, young eyes, carefully moving home furnishings and personal effects around to search for the more illusive clues.

From the foyer to the backyard, they hunted throughout the downstairs and when nothing was forthcoming, they checked its front and rear bay windows for signs of tampering. Their locks, frames and seams were intact to the gang's collective satisfaction. Which, again, left the upstairs.

Red gave a stretch and muttered to himself, "I knew we weren't gonna find anything. Just a big waste of time."

He ascended a few steps and looked down by force of habit, spotting two dead roaches on the stair ahead of him.

The sound of a warning squeak and feet running back downstairs cause the rest to meet him at the foot of the staircase.

"What's up?" Marcie asked, anxiously. "Did you find something?"

Red gave a whimper as an answer and pointed a trembling finger at the higher stairs.

"More roaches?" she deduced, passing him by and closely peering at each step until she, too, found the insects.

"I had a feeling I was gonna need this, "Marcie said as she reached into her wool jacket and pulled out a clear, plastic bag and a pair of latex gloves.

"What's that?" Jason asked from below.

"Specimen bag," she explained while she carefully placed the cockroaches inside it. "Our run-in with The Extinguisher had me thinking. Why would he have dead roaches in his tank and, more importantly, where did he find so many of them?"

"Make sure you ask him that when you see him," Red shivered, remembering his dusting of the things last week.

Marcie went up the stairs, step by careful step, checking each one for more roaches. When she reached the head of the staircase, she stood and held up the bag and examined her collection.

"I'm just glad that you didn't step on these guys, Red," Marcie said. "Because they're still intact, well, as far as the condition of their bodies are concerned, they may help us solve this mystery."

The rest of the gang looked at her in askance as they climbed the stairs. How would these creepy, disease-carrying...things...help anyone with anything, much less, a mystery?

When Red walked by Marcie, she gave a smirk and held the bag up to his face, saying, "Oh, by the by, there were _three_ roaches on the staircase..."

Red gasped and jumped away towards one of the guest bedrooms as Marcie finished her correction. "...Not two."

Jason gave a friendly pat to her shoulder and told her, "You've got a bit of a mean streak, don'tcha?" before heading over to the master bedroom.

"I try," she said, smugly, as she and everyone else fanned out and searched through the other rooms.

Jason entered the bedroom, marveling at how nothing had been disturbed in all of those days.

He gave a look at the large bed that dominated the room. _'Something that large might have something to hide if you look deep enough,'_ he though as he approached the bed.

He thought against lifting the huge and heavy mattress to see what was underneath. All of his muscles, he admitted to himself, either moved him in a waddle, or manipulated only the most middling of things. A weightlifter, he was not, but maybe, he could call Red for help in a while.

He decided instead to check underneath the bed, itself, and so, after an exhausting bout of kneeling to the carpeted floor, he stopped to catch his breath. It struck him as odd, however, that his breathing became a little more labored.

He decided to table that issue for later as he leaned under the frame and gave the floor below an quick once over. What he found made him call for the gang.

As they entered the bedroom, everybody looked under the bed and came away with more questions than when they came in. But before Daisy could ponder hers, her cell phone chimed in her jumpsuit pocket.

"Hello?" she answered. "Oh, hi, Conrad."

"Ugh!" Red fumed.

"I'm calling from the hospital," he told her, cupping his phone to block out the ambient noise from the waiting room. "It's my aunt. He's found her."

"How?" she asked, not believing that all of this trouble was starting all over again. "What happened?"

"I had just came home from work and I found her on the floor upstairs," he explained. "She was outta breath, but she said that she got so upset that she fainted. I took her to the hospital, right away."

"Good. We'll be right over."

With that, she hung up and relayed the dread news to her friends.

* * *

Settling in her hospital bed, Miss Lander rested as well as anyone who felt that she had a death sentence passed on her could. Conrad, dutifully, sat near her, hand on her trembling hand, to give her what solace he could give.

They turned their attention to the arrival of the gang, who, en masse, took up the other side of the bed, looking almost inconsolable.

"What happened, Miss Lander?" Marcie asked, her voice low, respectful.

The woman took a shaky draw of air from the room's walled oxygen pump through the cannula tied to her nostrils.

"I...I was just making my bed from the guest bedroom, when a card...a new card...fell out from the blanket. Here."

She pointed to a folded card on her table, nearby.

Red went over and opened it. ""The Extinguisher will throttle your little friends' efforts!" Wow."

"Miss Lander, we went back to your house to check for more clues," Marcie said to her, although it sounded more like a confession than a statement. "Did you know that you had dead roaches under your bed? Nowhere else."

Miss Lander perked up from that news. "No, I didn't know this. My home had no roaches. I always kept it very tidy and I prided myself on never needing to call an exterminator."

"Are you sure, ma'am?" Daisy pressed, gently.

"I'm telling the truth. I knew nothing about these roaches."

"Okay," Daisy said, then pondered aloud. "But how did The Extinguisher know where you lived? Man, what is with this guy?"

If the question was rhetorical, Conrad didn't care. "He's still after my aunt," he growled. " _That's_ what's with this guy."

Red, however, began to bristle, when those words looked like they were directed a little too closely to Daisy.

"I thought you kids said you were going to help," Conrad continued. "Especially, when I told you to stay away from him. He knows about you trying to stop him, now, and he might take out on her!"

"Hey, we're doing the best we can, pal, " Red defended. He could understand Conrad's feeling concerning his aunt's condition. Family was important, but Red's slight envy and annoyance with the man was starting to burn away a lot of empathy for him.

Not that Conrad was the least bit worried about Red's jealousy or dissatisfaction with him, especially when it was his personal dissatisfaction that was the issue, here. "Aunt Rebecca told me that you kids visited her earlier. Maybe he followed you to my house and figured out Aunt Rebecca was there."

The rest of the gang began to bristle from the accusation.

This forced Jason to speak up. "You don't think we had anything to do with all of this, do you?"

The voice of Miss Lander weakly cut through the tension of both parties. "Please, all of you, stop fighting. This isn't a competition. You're _all_ doing your best to help me, and besides, I won't be staying here long. Hopefully, this whole mess will be straightened out by the time I get back to my nephew's place."

Sadly, that much talking had taken its toll on her. She stopped and closed her eyes to try and rest, her voice haggard and wheezing slightly. That was all the cue Conrad needed to tell him this meeting was over.

"Okay, you have to leave now," he told them. "Aunt Rebecca needs some peace and quiet."

Marcie ruefully ruminated that Conrad was just as loud as they were, if he was also going to blame them for the noise, but with no further questions coming to mind, she and the other left the hospital room.

* * *

"I'm not giving up on this," Marcie said as she drove through the well-paved streets that bordered Darrow University from the rest of the town. "Err! I want this Extinguisher...extinguished."

Surprisingly, Red also took up Marcie's rally cry of frustration. "That guy covered me with dead roaches. Roaches! I can't wait until Round Two and I get to show him what extermination's really about." He slammed his rough fist into a waiting hand. "Ka-pow!"

Marcie pulled into the university's student parking lot and left the engine running while she waited for the rest to disembark.

"I'm going to go home and analyze those roaches from the stairs and under the bed," Marcie said. "What are you guys gonna do?"

Daisy stepped up, saying, "We're going to look for more clues in the one place we hadn't looked yet, the exterminator company where The Extinguisher used to work. There's gotta be something we can find."

"Then, happy hunting, guys," Marcie bade them. "We'll met up in my lab so we can put our heads together."

"Okay," said Daisy, watching her friend drive off. Then she made a beeline towards her own car, followed by Red and Jason.

When they found the car and got in, Jason asked from the backseat, "How are you gonna find anything when we get there?"

Daisy had already formulated a plan based on the very fact that their destination was a company, and like all companies, they had to dispose of their paperwork.

With a clever smile accompanying the awakening of her car's engine, she simply said, "I'm gonna do what I do best."

Jason was left to ponder that statement as they headed towards their target, Wreck-Insects Industries.

* * *

"Remember the plan," Daisy reminded the boys as they got out of the car. "You guys go in and talk up a storm. Distract 'em while I look for their waste paper dumpster. There's bound to be some juicy stuff in there."

Red scratched at his fiery curls, nervously. This sounded like acting, and he already made up his mind that he was either a bad actor, or an even worse conversationalist if the topic was not automotive, wrestling, or action movie-based.

"Uh, Daisy," he muttered. "I'm not much of a talker. I don't know anything about bugs and stuff. I can stomp on 'em like a expert, but that's about it."

Daisy smiled and gave Red a confidence-building hand on his broad shoulder. "No problem. I already thought of that. That why I don't want you to say a thing. Jason'll do all the talking. You just let your presence do the talking for you."

Red smiled relievedly and looked at Daisy as if it were the first time he ever saw her. She was so nice, he thought. She always knows what to say to make me feel like I can do anything. Not even Aunt Hedda could that the way Daisy could.

Daisy picked up on the look. _'He needs me,'_ she thought. _'He's just a big, red-headed teddy bear who just needs to be looked after.'_

She thought of ruffling her fingers through his flame-colored hair, but then those thoughts started to run away from her, and she had to fight to focus on the mission.

So, she gave his hard-muscled shoulder a friendly pat and sent him and Jason on their way through the front doors, and then casually walked towards the side of the building, hoping no one noticed her.

Inside, the two boys entered the air conditioned foyer. Pictures of the company, from its humblest of beginnings, to the success it claimed to be, now, were seen on every wall, on almost every side of the room. Except the receptionist's desk, which was kept free of such things so as not to impede her duties, like noticing two boys walking into her domain.

"Hello, how may I help you?" she asked.

Jason stepped in front of Red, sensing that the larger companion wouldn't be able to bluff his way through a lengthy conversation.

"Hello, ma'am," Jason began. "We were wondering, do you know anything about a vengeful ex-exterminator named The Extinguisher? He's said to have been an employee, here."

"No," she simply said.

"No _what?_ " Red asked. "No, you don't know anything about him, or no, he wasn't an employee."

"Both."

That elicited a sigh of frustration from Red. "Well, can you answer this, then. Has a employee named Conrad Lander been working all day?" He hoped that if he hadn't, it would somehow incriminate him, or, more importantly, make him look bad in the eyes of the lovely Daisy.

The receptionist made a phone call to management, got an answer, and hung up.

"Yes," said the taciturn woman. Red's hopes sank. "Who are you two?" she asked.

"Well, we're really from Darrow University and we're doing a report on advances in entomological research," Jason lied. "For example, did you know that there is a another university doing studies on increasing the intelligence and strength of a single worker ant with atomic energy? They were hush-hush about the project when we asked, and we tried to get more information, but they were very adamant about it."

The receptionist stared at him, not understanding the reason for the topic. Jason fretted inside. He was clearly losing her.

Daisy hoped that she didn't make too much noise or shake the dumpster when she navigated her way through the reams of paper clipped and discarded work orders, shipping orders and financial paperwork.

Her penlight flashed around the tight confines of the container as she used it to speed-read anything that would give her a glimpse into the career of The Extinguisher. Then, a thought intruded her work and she stopped momentarily.

"Crap," she sighed. "We don't even know his real name. Good doing, Daisy."

Dejected, Daisy ran combinations of words in her head that would soften the blow of telling the gang that they were the center of a wild goose chase, but first, she had to get out.

She shifted her weight in an effort to climb out of the dumpster, when the pile of sheets she stood on gave way, making her slip back down into the depths of documents and lost her penlight.

Fishing and fumbling around the folios, the female finally found the flashlight, resting on the face of a work order, which, when she finished reading it, freed a bit more evidence to the fair fact-finder.

"Well, what do you know?" she asked to no one in small triumph. _'Once again, dumpster diving pays off!'_ Daisy thought as she braced herself on the slippery stacks of paper and climbed her way out into the daylight.

The receptionist's eyes never wavered from Jason as he fed her everything that he knew about insects from all of the nature shows he would watch. Nothing seemed to impress the woman or get her to join in the chat. He was a well of entomological knowledge that was running dangerously dry.

"D-Did you know that earthworms are both male and female, or female and male, if you like," Jason stammered. Red stood where he was, not sure if he should be laughing because Jason was faltering despite knowing more of a given topic, or worry because they failed to distract long enough to help Daisy.

A loud, jaunty whistle sang outside the windowed front doors. Both boys turned to the sound and breathed a sigh of grateful relief.

Daisy stood before the doors holding a sheet of paper in her hand, the other hand, beckoning them to join her. The boys didn't need to be asked twice and they swiftly left the receptionist to her own solitary devices.

* * *

The flask's liquid spun around its walls as Marcie gave it a practiced, one-handed stir. The analysis had just been finished when there was a knock on the lab's door.

"Come in, guys," she called out.

Red, Daisy and Jason walked in, their eyes shining with news that they couldn't wait to relay. She knew the feeling. She had answers of her own.

"May I guess that you guys found something?" Marcie asked, casually.

"May we ask the same?" Daisy asked, playing Marcie's game.

"Of course. It was surprisingly easy, actually," Marcie said. "All of the roaches I examined had the same chemical residue on their carapaces. Hydrogen cyanide. The same fumigant that's being used by Conrad's company. Miss Lander said that she kept a clean house and never called for an exterminator, so why are there dead roaches _from another house_ in her home? I know it sounds strange, guys, but whoever this Extinguisher is, I think he's collecting the roaches from houses that had been fumigated."

Daisy beamed a smile. "If that's a fact, then you're gonna love this." She lifted the sheet of paper.

That was when the lab door burst open and the figure of The Extinguisher blocked out the sun. Brandishing his nozzle gun, he pointed it earnestly at the flatfooted teens inside.

Although Jason and the girls were figuratively caught with their pants down, frozen in the wonder of how he knew where they were and what they could do, under the circumstances, which was not much, as the intruder had them dead to rights.

Except for Red, who twisted into a running stance, fists balled and eager for contact. He smiled, grimly, as he finally had a chance to see and size up The Extinguisher as he stood in the doorway.

Red then looked at his nozzle and hardened within. If this kook was going to spray deceased insects at him, he would have to mentally prepare for it. Nothing, no fear, would dissuade him from extracting his payment for last week.

"Round Two, sucker," Red muttered from behind his smile, and launched himself at the stalker.

A cloud exploded from the nozzle's end. Marcie, who was further in the lab, tried to smell the vapor as Red's body was enveloped in it.

The faintest whiff of heavy knockout gas was detected in the air and Marcie was, again, thankful for the absence of the cyanide, although she pondered, with jocularity, as her mind buzzed with how to escape, if she would ever build up an immunity to the various knockout gases she had been expose to, so far.

Her lab was essentially a no-nonsense-designed cinder block and concrete bunker. One room, one door, three side windows for light and ventilation and simple, serviceable lighting. And again, she was trapped because of its simple architecture.

_'Great! First, Daisy Mayhem jumps me, here,'_ Marcie thought in frustration as Red fell, literally fighting the mist with swinging fists, and The Extinguisher swung the nozzle at the rest of them. _'Now_ this _. Maybe I should save up for a security system, myself.'_

The cloud's chemical power began robbing the others of strength, reason and soon consciousness. Jason and Daisy eventually stopped resisting, and collapsed to the cool, concrete floor as the cloud flowed further back, forcing Marcie in retreat until she bumped against the blackboard. Dead end.

Her mind debated on whether she could hold her breath and fake sleeping until she could escape to free her friends, which sounded ridiculous, or just give in to the gas and see what happens next, regrettably logical.

Giving in to reaction, she tried to fight against its effects, shaking her head violently to clear it, but her bloodstream had already absorbed the gas and the misty venom took the decision away from her as she finally crumpled to the floor.


	5. Chapter 5

She barely felt the blow across her face, only the vague sensation of her head moving. Another impact on her cheek, her ears just hearing the drumbeat of the strike, her feet not feeling the ground.

The darkness of the deep sleep was slowly fleeing from her mind, and now there were sounds. Indistinct, as the blows still came, followed by a shaking, a thrashing that she couldn't understand.

She stirred and spoke in her sleep, " C'mon, Dad...ten minutes...promise..."

"C'mon, Marcie. Wake up," Daisy urged.

Marcie's head hung limply to one side, but her mind began to float back to the surface of consciousness. She slowly opened her eyes. Blurry shapes met her vision in the dimness of wherever she was.

Hot water heater...washing machine...dryer...cold floor...person...two people...

She seemed to remember that it was the same sensation she felt whenever she didn't wear her yellow-tinted glasses.

Her mind slowly determined to put these phantom things together, as if they were a grade school picture puzzle. What did these thing have in common?

With a stretch, Marcie rallied her senses and opened her eyes fully. The dim environs of a house's cellar met her confused gaze.

Jason nervously stood off to the side of the laundry room that Marcie gradually figured they were in. Daisy was standing near her, watching her with worry, which puzzled her. Something was off. There should be...three? Where was Red?

"Stop hitting her, Red," Daisy fretted. "I think she's coming around."

"You sure?" Red asked, suspending Marcie off her feet easily with one hand gripping her blouse, and giving her light, curative slaps to her cheek, or, at least, light for him.

"Okay, okay!" Marcie said, completely roused from her sleep with one more "light" slap that left her cheeks as pink as if she were blushing. "I'm up! Geez, I might never eat solid food again, and put me down, please."

Red sheepishly complied. Marcie settled back on her feet, but wobbled on unsteady legs. While she fought to regain her balance, he said, "I'm sorry, Marcie. You were the last to wake up and because we thought that you might have inhaled too much of the gas, I volunteered to wake you."

" _Wake_ her, Red," Daisy chimed in. "Not knock her head off."

"Yeah, sorry again," Red apologized. "Don't know my own strength, sometimes."

Marcie gave her ahead a shake to clear the cobwebs, then said, "All is forgiven, if you promise to never be an EMT."

Red smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. "All right! What's an EMT?"

"Welcome back, Marcie," Jason said from his corner, then, he ventured a question, "Now, what are we doing here?"

"Obviously, Mr. Extinguisher decided to place here," Marcie pondered, trying to bring more of her mental faculties online. "It's a house. That much I get, but, why? Why is this place so special that he bothered to put us here?"

She walked out of the room, which was situated in the cellar's rear, and entered its center, deep in thought.

"How about we get out of here," Jason pressed her. "We're just in somebody's basement. Let's just get out and if we run into the owner of the house, we'll tell him or her that we're just as surprised that we wound up here as they are."

Marcie took Jason's words to heart and asked both Daisy and Red, "Did any of you check the door? Maybe we're not locked down here."

Both shook their heads and Daisy said, "We just woke up not too long ago. We wanted to make sure everybody was awake before we made any moves."

Marcie nodded. "Make sense to me. We'll, since we're all bright-eyed and bushy tailed, now, let's get up those stairs and open us a door."

She and the rest of the gang marched through the length of the basement, found the stairs and ascended.

Jason reached over and turned the doorknob, eager for freedom. The door opened, easily, then stopped short, leaving a space of about three inches between the door and its frame.

Confused, Jason reared the door closed and then tried to open it again. It stopped with three inches of open space for him to see past into a darkened, empty home. At least, he could see out through the door if he disregarded the curtain of brassy chains that laced the space from the top of the doorway to its bottom.

"What's this?" he asked, swinging the door against the chains once more, and trying to calm himself, knowing that it was beginning to look more like a prison than a house.

Red stepped past Jason after he backed down a few steps to let him by. He took a closer look at a few of the chains and the answer hit him with a clarity that made laugh, incredulously.

"That is _wicked_!" he said, more to himself that to any in attendance.

"What?" Marcie asked from a lower level of the stairs. "What do you see?"

"I'll give the guy this, when he wants us to stay put, he makes sure we stay put," Red chuckled.

Daisy, peering past Red's broad shoulders, saw the chains, and asked, "If you're finished admiring the guy you wanted to pound earlier, could you please tell us what is it that's keeping the door from opening?"

"Oh, yeah," he said, recovering. "They're door chains. A ton of them. I don't where we are, but we are definitely locked in here. Good looking steel, too."

"Then, that just begs another question," Marcie said. "Why lock us down here?" It was then that her up-turned nose suddenly caught something in the air.

"Is someone cooking something up there?" she asked, as she smelled more and more of it, coming from the doorway above. It was a soft, faint scent, warm and reminiscent of what? Cookies…with nuts?

"There's nobody up there. It's dark," Red reported. "But, I think I smell something, too."

"Me, too," said Daisy.

"So do I," added Jason.

No one was in the dark house, but this ghost of a scent became slightly stronger. It had to add up to something. If no one was cooking, what was that smell.

That nutty smell...

Her blood suddenly froze still in her veins and everything was answered with a clarity that bordered on divine.

They were trapped in Hell.

"Get away from that door!" she screamed, running back towards the laundry room as if her legs were on fire.

"What? What's going on, Marcie?" Daisy asked, coming down the stairs to follow her.

"Guys, close that door!" Marcie yelled again, and didn't feel even a modicum of security until she heard the door slam shut. "C'mon back here, where it's safe!"

The boys reached the foot of the stairs and soon caught up with the girls by the laundry room's arch.

"What do you mean, safe?" asked Jason, already nervous due to present events.

Marcie looked absolutely mad, as she gave them a wild-eyed look of fear, anger and helplessness. It didn't assure any of them of good things to come. "That _smell_. Don't you smell it?" she asked them in a terrified whisper.

"Yeah," Red said slowly, as if trying to calm Marcie down from having a psychotic break. "It smells like roast nuts, that's all."

For once, Marcie knew how Jason felt during his more cowardly moments, the fear creeping into her heart, set to rob her of her composure, and thus, her ability to think of a way out.

Marcie shook her head tightly, fearfully. " _Almonds_ ," she hissed, as if the word was the most vile, godless, and evil thing ever uttered in human linguistics.

Daisy shrugged and wondered what would make Marcie freak out like this. Maybe it was just the stress of worrying about not finding a way out, yet.

"Marcie. Hey, girl, what's wrong? Whatever it is, we can handle it, together," she attempted to coax, but to no avail.

"That's why The Extinguisher locked us down here," Marcie said through a dry throat. "Why this house is so special. This house is getting fumigated. What you smell is the fumigant. Hydrogen cyanide."

Red asked, not quite understanding Marcie's panic, "That's bad, somehow, right?"

She turned her crazed eyes towards him. "If that gas seeps down here, the next time you see yourself in a suit, it'll be at your funeral."

The rest of the gang silently stood where they were, digesting the chilling words that Marcie, a born chemist, just told them. It wouldn't be long before the gas did get through the door upstairs, and then, death. Permanent death.

At Jason's sudden, weeping cue, everyone chatted insanely, asking the other what to do, each panicked, screeching question overlapping the other.

Finally tired from manically asking questions and getting no concrete answers, Marcie, not wanting to crowd out Jason from his bit of corner, walked over to the other corner of the room, which was away from one side of the dryer, sat down, stared blankly ahead, and started quoting about all the joys of cyanide poisoning.

"A concentration in the range of one hundred to three hundred parts per million in air will kill a human within ten to sixty minutes," she droned to herself. "A hydrogen cyanide concentration of two thousand parts per million will kill a human in about one minute."

"We won't have to wait long, then," Daisy, overhearing, sadly quipped. The nervous breakdown had subsided when all present realized that this was an unfortunately effective deathtrap and wasting what air they had was simply counter-productive.

She went over to where Red had sat in front of the washing machine, sidled up next to him and put her head on his massive chest. She had the pleasure of listening to his heartbeat, even if it did race a little, thanks to adrenaline, but she didn't mind. It was a song all her own that she could hear to get her mind off the coming inevitability.

Red, for his part, luxuriated in his embrace of her. Against her jumpsuit, he realized that he was holding someone close and, in his mind, no one was as soft, supple, delicate, or as beautiful, as Daisy Blake. Even her name had an innocent, wholesome ring to it, as if she were too good for a grease monkey, like him. But he would never believe that, because _she_ would never believe that, and that made him hold her a little tighter.

"Cyanide, if inhaled, causes comas. With seizures, apnea, and cardiac arrest, death will follow in a matter of seconds," Marcie continued with her one-girl lecture. "At lower doses, however, loss of consciousness may be preceded by general weakness, giddiness, headaches, vertigo, confusion, and difficulty in breathing."

Jason lifted his bowed head from his chest and said to Marcie, in an effort to stop listening to this frightening dissertation, "You know, I can hear you fine, but if you were trying to tell the lovebirds over there, you might have to speak a little louder to get their attention."

Marcie, never one from denying anyone an education, did stop and turn her head in Jason's direction like a dejected zombie, asking him, "Where are they, then?"

Jason pointed over to the direction of one the appliances in the room. "Over there, by the washing machine."

From Marcie's location, if she turned to their direction, all could see was the dryer's white, metallic side. And because she didn't feel like standing up and walking over to the duo, the washing machine was sitting dully on her sullen mind, like some unloved hat that she had been forced to wear.

_'Washing machine,'_ she thought, blankly. Her mind couldn't help but word-associate that with, _'Water...'_

Water...

Suddenly, Marcie laughed out loud from the thunderbolt that blasted through her emotionally thickened head.

"Water! That's it!" she screamed again, this time in joyous victory. "We can get out of this!"

The positive sound of Marcie forming a plan, possibly a scientific one, to allow them to escape had everyone else getting to their feet and surrounding the chemist-slash-amateur detective as she began to stand.

"How can we do it?" Daisy asked, her heart jumping at the prospect of living again.

Marcie noticed how dim the whole basement was, and proposed, "We need to turn the power back on so we can use the washing machine."

Looking around the room with the help of both Marcie and Daisy's penlights, it didn't take long for Jason to find the fuse box attached to the wall whose corner he was previously slumped in, only higher above.

Giving one of the penlights to him, Jason opened its door with authority and scanned the circuit breaker switches that designated each room and appliance of the house, looking for the one marked 'laundry.'

"Ah-ha!" he said, triumphantly, locating the switch. With a cavalier flick, he brought power back to the laundry room. Flicking another switch brought light to the basement proper.

"What now?" Red asked Marcie, wondering how a washing machine was going to get them out, but not bringing it up, for fear of jinxing things, so far.

Now that the lights were on, she could look into both machines to see if the family who lived there left some clothes in one of them.

A load was found in the dryer and Marcie sighed in relief, before taking them out and dumping them on the floor.

Now everyone was curious as to what Marcie was doing, but snapped out of the pondering when she pointed at the washing machine and said, "Whoever's closest, turn on the washer. Set it for cold water."

Red was closest and so he selected the cold water setting, then a cycle, and then he turned it on. Quickly, the tub began to fill with water.

"It's filling up," he said.

"Great!" Marcie said, next. "Now turn it off before the cycle starts. I just want the water."

She then kneeled in front of the clothes she piled on the floor and beckoned the others to join her.

"C'mon," she said. "We have to find something, like a shirt or a blouse, that we can tear into big strips. Both Daisy and Jason shrugged, but they did as they were told, singling out thin shirts and even thinner blouses.

Once they were done, Marcie looked around the room frantically.

Daisy noticed this. "What are looking for?"

Marcie stepped out of the laundry room, saying, "I need something sharp to cut the clothes with. Ah-ha!"

On a work table nearby, sat a circular saw. Marcie didn't think she would need the whole saw, but the spare blades that hung on a particleboard wall above it, would do, nicely.

Her joy was sidetracked horribly, however, by the scent of death growing more and more heavy, even down in the basement. She had hoped that by closing the cellar door, it would slow the gas's progress to them. It had, but nothing would truly keep it at bay, and now, it was coming.

She went over to the wall, took a circular blade from it, and ran back to the laundry room.

"Quick!" she told everyone. "Use this to poke a hole in the clothes and start tearing them into strips! I smell the gas coming!"

Everybody took frantic turns mutilating shirts and blouses and then turning them into the remnants that Marcie wanted.

"What now?" asked Red, reaching over to stop the washer before it could run its cycle.

"Put the strips in the water!" Marcie instructed. "Soak 'em all."

The gang grabbed the strips of cloth and tossed them into the machine, Marcie thrusting her hand into the tub and stirring the fabric around in the cold water to make sure they were thoroughly wet.

Then, she took out a shirt strip, gave it a little wring to get some of the water out and quickly tied it across her face. The rest of the gang's understanding immediately took root.

Each one reached into the washer and plucked out a ready-made, protective bandanna, which they also tied to their faces. When Marcie beckoned them to follow her back to the door upstairs, they did so with the confidence borne of knowing someone who would tax her brain to the limit to keep them safe.

Marcie stopped them at the foot of the stair and motioned for only Red to step forward. She pointed at the door, which was now almost obscured by white tendrils of cyanide curling through the spaces that the door could seal against.

"Red," she told him. "Smash that door!" Then, she stepped back.

Red turned to face the stairs, got into a football player's three-point stance, focused on shattering the door and The Extinguisher to pieces, and then flew up the staircase.

He knew he had to hit the door just right, with the right amount of force and momentum, and so, aimed his shoulder at the side of the door that was tied with the door chains. That was the weak spot.

With gritted teeth, he collided with the door, feeling himself bounce backwards slightly with the door's chains absorbing most of the impact, but in doing so, something had to give way, and that something was the wood surrounding the door, itself.

The top to middle level of chains remained intact where the shoulder struck, but their short screws, which anchored them to the door frame, were cleanly ripped out, causing the door to open that much wider.

Wider, but not wide enough to effect an escape.

Realizing this, Red ran back downstairs, caught his breath through the wet fabric of his makeshift gas mask and did it again, this time lowering his shoulder to tear away more chains from their anchors.

That helped to open the door to better degree, but the door was still sufficiently bound by the lower door chains and even Red couldn't bend down and create enough momentum to rip the lowest chain still attached. He turned and ran back downstairs to give them the unhappy news.

It was then that he remembered the saw blade that they used to help shred the clothing.

If the saw, itself, had a an extension cord...

He ran past a confused Marcie, Daisy and Jason on his way to the work table in the middle of the basement. There, the saw lay, and power was supplied to the cellar, but the tool was unplugged.

He desperately searched around the table for an extension cord. It wasn't until he looked up and saw the cord wrapped around a work light that hung from the particleboard wall, that he gladly uncoiled the cord, plugged one end of it to a nearby socket, plugged the other end into the saw's own cord and ran back up the stairs.

"What are you doing?" came Marcie's cloth-muffled question.

"Finishing what I started," came the reply followed by the screech of the saw's activation and its spark-flying devouring of the remaining lower chains.

With the last chain surrendering to the teeth of the saw, Red threw open the door and dropped the saw to the floor.

"C'mon, guys!" he yelled. The rest of the group scrambled up the stairs to follow him as he led the way, past spewing toxic canisters, towards the closer back door through the deadly fog that already filled most of the dinning room, living room, and kitchen

Red whipped the door open, and, with relief beyond measure, they ran outside and closed the door behind them. However, when they stopped to take off their bandannas and catch their breaths, they noticed a strange dimness to the outdoors of the backyard.

Although, they were finally out of the lethal house, there was still one more barrier to overcome, the reason why the house was so dark in the first place, considering that it was still daytime.

A rubber tent, like the one they saw when they first met Conrad, had been erected around the house, blocking out most of the sunlight.

"C'mon! Grab this!" Daisy shouted, running over to one end of the tent. She knelt down and clutched the bottom of the material. The others follow suit, grabbing their own bottom section of tent. Then, as one, they lifted, and crawled their way out onto the green grass and sunshine of freedom and life.

"That Extinguisher is starting to really get on my nerves, believe it or not," she joked, darkly, as she and the other lay on their backs, completely spend. Then, a thought struck her. "Guys, did we leave the power on?"

Jason managed to speak up between puffs of air. "Yeah, why?"

Marcie started to stand. "Because those bug bombs are pumping a lot of fumigant in there."

"So. That's what they're supposed to do, right?" Daisy asked, standing.

"Yeah," Marcie nervously said. "However, I think we better get going. Like, now, guys!"

Red and Jason stood up last, Red asking, "How come?"

"Just run!" Marcie yelled before sprinting from the tented house, hoping the others wouldn't waste time asking why and just did what she said. To her relief, she could hear the rapid footfalls of her friends behind and to the side of her.

They ran as far as the next block, before they started their winded Q&A session with her.

"What's the problem, Marcie?" Jason asked. "We we're out of the house."

"But not outta trouble," Marcie explained. "Hydrogen cyanide is flammable, and with that much poison in the house, all it'll take is one spark from something electrical and-"

The rest of her lecture was cut short by the rumble-blast of an explosion that spoke so loud and so close, the gang could feel the force of it within the centers of their bodies. All eyes looked to see a large, striped tent being lifted to the sky and consumed by a bright fireball that rose from the depths of the neighborhood.

The fireball cloud grew as tall as it could before its strength was exhausted, letting what was left of the tent float down, burning as it descended.

Imagining the weeks, if not years, in jail Sheriff Stone would keep them for this, Marcie decided. "Friends, I think we better make a discrete exit from here before Sheriff Stone buries us under the police station."

With everyone heartily agreeing with her, the gang left the now-chaotic neighborhood, double-time.


	6. Chapter 6

In her home of Blake Mansion, Daisy reclined on her plush bed and gave a lazy look around her bedroom, calming her mind of today's events by meditating on the familiar, comforting picker's collection of vintage oil cans, various knick-knacks, and petroliana that hung stylishly upon her walls and furnished her decor.

_'Hmm,'_ she gave a thought, as she settled more in her bed. _'Walls are looking a bit bare. Flea market time!'_

She gave a stretch and sighed. Of all the traps from all of the weird mysteries she found herself in with Marcie, this one cut so close, she feared that the venerable Blake bloodline would have been shortened by one daughter.

Maybe...she shouldn't hang out with her younger friend anymore...

Daisy shook her head, in shame, physically shaking the thought from her wandering mind. Marcie might not have the looks of a Blake, but she was

cool. She had the brains of a local genius, and the heart of a lioness when it came to the people she cared about.

_'Maybe that's why she would go on and on about that Dinkley girl, sometimes,'_ she thought. _'They must have been really close friends.'_ She tickled herself with a thought about what their relationship might have been like in another life.

However, in the here and now, Marcie saved her and her other sisters from a life of mental bondage when they first met. Indeed, she saved her life from physical harm more than once, although critics would probably say that due to Marcie's unusual 'hobby,' she was the one who endangered it in the first place.

Daisy dispelled that thought, as well. It was always _her_ decision to be with Marcie, either for a milkshake or a mystery. It was always a good way to chase away the blahs and frustrations of home and college life.

Plus, she wouldn't have met Red Herring without her, and with a smile, she considered that a _definite_ plus in her book.

Daisy then wondered what to name this new deathtrap. As long as she had been with Marcie on her adventures, she had been naming them, both the ones they shared and those Marcie lived through solo. It was a cocky way to deal with the jitters of surviving afterwards and as a way to commemorate them.

This one, she would christen, "The Cyanide Sayonara." She smile wearily, proud of her accomplishment.

A light knock, and her mother walked in and sat beside Daisy on the bed.

"How are you feeling dear?" she asked, looking at the exhausted state of her daughter. "You look so tired and beat up. Have you been taking your vitamins? They can't work if you don't take them."

"Oh, it's nothing, Mom," Daisy told her, thankful that she never told her parents about the mysteries. If they ever knew she was in mortal danger ever time she got involved, then, college student or no, she would have been home schooled for her overprotective safety.

"Well, if you say so, dear," Nan conceded. "By the way, that dear Miss Lander called here earlier."

Daisy sat up. "What did she want?"

"She said that she left the hospital. The doctors said that she was fine as long as she doesn't excite herself. Something to do with nerves, I think. Anyway, she said that was going home to her nephew's. I swear that woman just dotes on him. He must be her favorite in the family."

"Well, he _is_ letting her stay at his house until we take care of this Extinguisher business." Daisy said, already regretting her slip of the tongue.

"We?" Nan asked.

"I mean 'we' as 'we, the citizens of Crystal Cove.' It's all about community, after all." Daisy lied.

"Of course, dear," Nan said, her spark of concern put out. "Anyway, she really should let her nephew be, sometimes. I know she loves him, but I hope she's not molly-coddling him with her wealth."

"What do you mean, Mom?"

"What I mean, dear, is that she should love her family, but she shouldn't pamper them, too much. Look at us. As your parents, we made sure that even though you and your other sisters are unrepentant slackers, and will probably never make anything of yourselves, as Daphne have-"

"Thanks, Mom," Daisy said, uncomfortably, sinking a little bit into her bed.

"We made sure that you still worked to get a good education."

"Weren't we tutored before we went to college?" Daisy recollected.

"That's besides the point, dear," Nan said, chuckling the truth away. "The fact is that you all graduated high school! That's why we put all of you in our wills!"

"Wait,' Daisy said, her head wrapping around this revelation. "You would only put us in your wills…if we graduated? I thought you loved us. Slacker and all."

"Of course we do, dear," her mother said, unperturbed. "But we had to give you _something_ to strive for, and no Blake should _ever_ be without money, even the ones who'll never do anything with their lives. That's how much we love you."

Daisy laid back down and ruminated on the sheer Machiavellian guile of her two parents, as Nan got up and began to walk out.

"Oh, I gotta run. Jenkins just took a roast out of our new oven, and I just have to see how it came out. Bye."

"Bye, Mom," Daisy said, giving her a lazy wave as Nan left.

"Put us in the will, but only if we graduate. Geez, that's was harsh. They made me…work hard! No wonder they never said anything about it, until now. The damage is done. I'll bet whatever we get'll be based on our scores, too. Dorothy will probably get more than me. Even for a slacker, she was smart," Daisy groused to herself.

The more she thought about the unfairness of it, the more she kept thinking about it, kicking herself that she didn't ask Nan, right then, how much she was going to get.

_'Knowing Mom,'_ Daisy thought. _'She'd keep that a secret.'_

Daisy decided to take a nap and put everything aside. Marcie would figure out who did what to whom, pretty soon, and all would be right with the world. All Daisy wanted to focus, before sleep took her again, was the will...

the will...

_the will..._

Daisy bolted out of bed, electrified by the flash of inspiration she felt from probably the biggest clue of the case. She ran out of her room, eager to find a phone with a landline in this big house.


	7. Chapter 7

The Clue Cruiser was parked in front of Conrad's house, while Marcie and Red started pulling out objects and tools from the car's forward trunk. She was a bit curious when Jason donated a female manniken to the enterprise, and asked him why did he have such a thing.

The boy gave a fierce blush and said it was for making accurate proportions for a robot he was working on. Marcie decided not to ask anything more from him.

The equipment needed for this was neither complicated or legion, but they were essential for what was planned after they put their heads together, and soon, they entered the house with the use of one of Marcie's Quick Keys, and prepared.


	8. Chapter 8

An eye peered out from behind the curtain of a master bedroom, watching, and when it spotted the prey coming down the street, a soft voice, eager for the hunt, called out, "He's coming," and then the eye went back behind the shade.

It was early evening and enough people were in their homes that the streets were deserted, save for the few citizens who walked by, noticed The Extinguisher in full garb, skulking towards the home of Conrad Lander, and continued to walk, thinking a house nearby must be in need of a good exterminator.

He stepped up to the door and it soon opened. The one thing he noticed was that it was dark inside. That didn't concern him, too much. He had been here before and could maneuver in the home, and more importantly, he knew that she was here.

He started to go up the stairs, but then stopped when he heard a sound coming from upstairs. A sound that he had longed for, had worked so hard for. A hacking, breathless coughing. He continued his walk.

The work boot's footsteps boomed in the walking, and every step he took, the coughing grew worse, as if he were physically stomping the life out of her with every glorious pace.

He took his time on the ascent. The coughing gave him that kind of confidence. It definitely sounded like she didn't have long to go, and maybe, if he didn't feel too cruel tonight, he'd help her along.

At the top of the stairs, he stopped and listened in the gloom. His caution was rewarded by the upstairs ringing out with the sound of a woman slowly dying in the dark. He angled toward the guest bedroom.

Again the footfalls echoed heavily in the hallway, soles scraping when he made a turn against the wooden floor.

There. The guest bedroom. He silently reached out and turned the doorknob, not that stealth was needed with all the racket the woman was making with each labored breath. She fought for every inhalation, keeping death at bay, if just for one more moment.

He could hear that just through the door. It had to end, tonight, however. No more cards, no more home intrusions, and no more waiting. She had to die.

He turned the knob and entered.

The place was lit by the ambient light coming from the room's only window, so it made his hunt easier, as his eyes immediately zeroed in on the room's occupied bed and he steadily approached, listening to the gasping, coughing sounds of his expiring prey. There was a thrill in that, an dire electric charge in the air of the bedroom that energized him with each step towards the bed.

His attacks were subtle, yet cunning, using her own infirmity against her. Time would do the rest, and now time was up for Miss Rebecca Lander.

He arrived at one side of the bed, always looking at her, always watching. He gave himself a smile behind his gas mask, as he reached for the covers to watch her breathe her last. To know that her killer had finally come.

With a violent snatch, the blanket flew across the room and he was finally face to face...with a Miss Lander-looking mannikin and a tape recorder playing a symphony of one-person hacking.

The scene was so incredible, it shocked him frozen into place. _'Where was she?'_ his mind screamed. _'Where's the victory I worked so hard for?'_

In the dark, a pair of silent hands had reached out from under the bed to do their swift work. He barely felt the shackle being placed around the girth of one of his bootlegs, the two hinged halves of semi-circular iron swinging closed, quietly. When he did feel the bolt quickly locking the halves together, he knew that a trap was sprung. _Her_ trap, somehow.

He damned himself for his hesitation, for his stupid, internal tantrum. Why was he still _here_? He should have just run, _just run_! But, by then, it was too late.

Trying to flee, he lifting his foot to pull away, only to expose a short, clattering length of strong chain uncoiling from under the bed. It stopped soon after, due to the other end being bolted to one of the rear legs of the heavy bed.

He fearfully yanked again, and the bed, being so weighty, slid forward a foot or two. If the chain wouldn't break, he would have wanted to tow the bed out of the room, somehow, to make his escape, but the bed was too unyielding. Why was he restrained this way?

"Who's in here with me?" he asked, unsteadily, his voice resonant through the gas mask. "Release me and I won't finish you."

The answer came when the light switch clicked on and Marcie, Red, Jason and Sheriff Stone stood in the doorway. Daisy slipped out from under the bed, a moment later, to join them.

Upon seeing them alive, The Extinguisher lashed his blackest curse at them, wishing desperately that the chain had somehow snapped so he could gladly fight his way through the blocked portal. He would give these children pain. Lasting pain.

"How are you still breathing," he asked. "I locked you in that house. It should have finished you, and the exterminators should've found your bodies in a week."

"Don't you know?" Marcie quipped. "We're like cockroaches. We're hard to kill. But we're gonna kill your plan to kill Miss Lander... _Conrad_."

The Extinguisher gave a sad chuckle from behind the mask. "Who? I am The Extinguisher, girl, and when I get out of these chains, I'm going to extinguish all of you."

The three stood firm to his weak threats, especially since he would have to free himself before carrying them out.

"I very much doubt that," Marcie said. "First, when we went over to Miss Lander's house, you told her that she would never have to read The Extinguisher's calling cards again, but when we told you that she was being stalked by him, we never told you that he left calling cards behind, so how would you know?

"Second," she continued. "Miss Lander said, in the hospital, that she kept a clean home and didn't have any roaches, so why did we find some in her house? I don't think she's a liar, so I analyzed some of them, and I found out that their bodies were covered with the same insecticide your company uses for fumigation, meaning that when we first tried to catch you, you had dead roaches from those fumigated houses in your tank that day."

"Makes sense," Daisy added. "The work sheet I found said that the house where we first met you was not the one you were assigned to. The address on the paper was the same as the hostess's. Heck, according to it, you're not even a real fumigator, you're just an ordinary exterminator. So, why were you there? You were probably waiting for the other workers to leave for a day or two, so you could sneak in later on and collect all of those roaches, I'll bet."

"And didn't you say that her doctor told you to make a copy of your aunt's house key so if anything happened to her, you could get to her?" Red asked, jumping in on the deduction. "Guess you were following doctor's orders because you had to have had a key made to get in and out of her house and leave the calling cards."

"Plus, we know how you wanted to kill Miss Lander, too," Jason said. "All of the cards you left alluded to the same thing: choking. Meaning that you wanted her to choke to death, but leave no trace to you. You knew that she had a breathing problem, so you left those dead roaches in her bedroom, so it would make her condition worse. Dead roaches and their droppings leave a dander that can make people with asthma even sicker."

"Oh, and that was pretty clever putting us in a house that only you would know would be fumigated," Marcie said, smoothly. "The chain locks across the basement door was a nice touch."

"But, to tell the truth," Daisy concluded. "The biggest clue was your relationship with Miss Lander. I called her earlier and asked if she ever made out her will. Not only had she, but you were in it. But, I guess, you already knew that, just like you knew that you were her favorite nephew. You took advantage of that to get your inheritance."

"Yeah, yeah," Stone said, impatiently waving the drama away. "But he says that he's this Executioner guy, not Curtis-"

"Conrad," Marcie corrected.

"Whatever! The point is he didn't confess to anything. So, now what?"

"Red, if you would be so kind?" Marcie asked him, genteelly.

Red closed the door behind him and then held up something small, cylindrical and metal high enough so that even The Extinguisher could see it clearly. When the stalker saw the infamous universal sign for poison, the skull and crossbones, on its face, his stomach became a block of ice. He took a step back from it and Marcie knew it had the desired effect she wanted.

Red, with a cavalier motion, popped the top of the can and rolled the object to the far side of the room, where it hit the wainscoting of a wall and rolled back, stopping a few feet from The Extinguisher.

Pressurized gouts of toxin suddenly flowed from the bug bomb, filling the small room at a frightening rate, causing absolute terror to fill the man, since he couldn't move but maybe another foot.

"What are doing?" he roared. "That's poison gas, you fools! It'll wipe us out!"

"Why? You're wearing a gas mask aren't you?" Red asked with ruthless indifference. "You're safe."

The man's nerve begin to crack. "It's a prop. It's for show! It doesn't work!" He looked to the side of the room in desperation. "Look, there's a window! Throw it out, before it's too late!"

"Nah," Marcie shrugged. "We took a vote and we all decided that it would be better if we took you out, even if it meant that we'd go, too. We'd tell you to tell your Aunt Rebecca goodbye, but she's back home, now, and since you won't have long for this world, she'll be safe."

The room was thick with clouds of poison, clinging to every wall, filling every space, giving those within no chance of fresh air. In fact, The Extinguisher could see, just through the haze, Marcie, and then, Red gasp, cough, and then collapse onto the bedroom floor. With a spasm of twitches, they grew still.

"Please, Sheriff!" The Extinguisher implored. "You have to help me! Please!"

Stone shook his head slowly. "Sorry, citizen. I'm with the kids on this one. If you are as guilty as they say, then maybe you should confess..." Stone managed to say, before the vapor began literally taking his breath away. "Before it's...too late." With that, he slumped weakly against the door, his strength nearly gone.

So far, The Extinguisher had been watching the others slowly succumb to the mists, but it wasn't until the fumes found their way inside his faux gas mask, and he coughed, that he panicked and finally surrendered the truth.

"Alright! I did it! I did it! I'm Conrad!" he almost wept, throwing off the goggles and fake mask, and revealing the villainous exterminator. "I tried to kill my aunt for the money in her will! Just, please, open the window before I die in here!"

Daisy managed to find the strength to crawl foot by difficult foot to the window, stand on shaky legs, and clumsily slide the window open. Immediately, the ventilation began to draw the gas away, clearing the room and revealing the still bodies.

He didn't understand and decided that he didn't want to. Suicide? Were they so dedicated to solving this case, to prove him guilty, that were willing to consume their own lives in doing so?

"I warned you to open that window, earlier," he said to Daisy, with an accusing sneer. "Now you've lost your friends and the one man who could have done something with my confession."

While Daisy still stood by the window, he looked around the room for more casualties. However, Jason, who hadn't been seen by him when the gas was at its more obscure, stood by the bed, tape recorder in hand, giving him a friendly wave, as he rewound the tape and replayed Conrad Lander's confession.

"How? How did you..." He was starting to believe what Marcie had said earlier about being indestructible.

Jason walked over to the now spent canister and picked it up, saying, "Smoke bomb. Totally harmless, and with a little acting on our part, totally believable to you."

"Like the shackle?" Daisy asked. "I picked that up in a garage sale few years back. I love going to them. You'll never know _what_ you'll find."

When the corpses of Marcie, Red and Sheriff Stone began to stir and rise from the floor, Daisy called over to the sheriff, "Sheriff, I think you have your confession." She then turned her attention to Conrad, with a scathing look.

"I gotta admit, you were playing Miss Lander like an old tune, putting so much fear into her. Well, now we got to turn it on you and let you feel a little of what you put that poor woman through." She produced a folded card from a jumpsuit pocket and handed it to him.

Despite his hatred for her and the others, his curiosity made him accept it. He opened it, and what was written inside, rankled him, deeply.

"The Extinguisher... _extinguished_ , by some meddlesome pests," he read, bitterly.

He crushed the card as a final act of defiance before Stone restrained him with handcuffs and freed him from the shackle, marching him downstairs to his waiting cruiser. The gang followed them, soon after.


	9. Chapter 9

The end of the week that followed the arrest of Conrad Lander, was the beginning of Rebecca Lander's life, as far as she was concerned. The party she threw was a bittersweet one, celebrating both her scheming nephew's incarceration and her freedom from him. His betrayal hurt her heart when his plan was exposed, however, the selection of friends that she invited, touched her heart just as deeply.

There were a dozen or so partiers in attendance, taking their ease among the alcoholic and non-alcoholic libations present and mingling contentedly in her home. In her world of wealth, a party this size would be considered a light get-together, which suited Rebecca just fine.

_'My home,'_ she thought with a grateful smile. _'Mine, truly mine, again.'_

Her ruminations was interrupted by the presence of her friend Nan Blake, sipping on a daiquiri .

"You look like you're enjoying yourself, Nan."

"Well, I always like a good party, but how are you holding up?"

Rebecca sighed. "Oh, fine. For a few days, I was the talk of the social set. Questions left and right, when I would see some of the neighbors. It's not as bad, now that things have quieted down and they moved on to some other juicy gossip. Which reminds me. I want to apologize for what I did to you at the hostess's party a few weeks ago. I had no right to try and pry into your family's life, then. I know how that feels and I shouldn't have done that to you. What I'm saying is, can you forgive me, Nan?"

Nan's eyes widened slightly in surprise. She didn't expect that to come from her. Yes, she was a bit of a busybody and a gossip, but when Nan looked into Rebecca's eyes, she could see the sadness of losing a family member, the stress he put her through for her wealth, and the gratitude she radiated now.

"Look, Rebecca, a lot has happened between now and then," Nan said. " _You've_ been through a lot, and I think we all learned lessons. Like, maybe _I_ should talk to my friends more about things that have been weighing me down lately, instead of bottling them up inside. That's what friends do, right? I guess, what I'm trying to say is, yes, I forgive you."

Rebecca gave her a friend a hug that Nan, one-armed, reciprocated fully. She gave a contented glance at her young guests of honor, as they helped themselves to food and drink, chatting with the older guests on various topics that surprised their elders with their acumen.

Marcie and Jason, between bites and gulps, gave their opinions on mad science and technology to a nearby tech magnate. Daisy had managed to capture the ear of a noted art critic, discussing the merits of junk art.

Red, however, boldly demonstrated his salesmanship to a director of a reputable company that served the tri-state area by circulating through the party, glad-handing and giving every adult partier a business card touting the virtues of Hedda's Hot Rod and Motorcycle Repair. And then, either through forgetfulness, or a desire to remind his potential customer base, he went around and gave out the same cards again.

Rebecca went over to the gang, acting as hostess, and asked, " How are you all doing? Having fun?"

With a positive acknowledgement from the teens, she nodded and turned on her entertainment system. A soft song floated from the expensive speakers and the older guests, those that were so inclined, paired up with their husbands and wives and embraced to the music.

Nan looked in the direction of her daughter, just as Daisy was standing up and coaxing a reluctant, so would say bashful, Red Herring to the dance floor. Eventually, she won the battle and Red awkwardly held her by the waist. Daisy corrected him in stance and step, and soon, they, too were moving to the mellow air being played.

Nan gave a thoughtful look at the two of them. Even though Daisy was a slacker among slackers, to her, she was still a Blake, and more importantly, a daughter. She hoped that this rough looking boy wouldn't hurt her or lead her astray. But the happy look on Daisy's face and the nervous look on Red's, painted a picture that showed Nan that maybe she needn't worry about her daughter, too much. She seemed to have everything under control.

"We Blake always did have strange taste in boys," she said to herself. But she noticed that one missing. Where was that odd girl, Marcie?

* * *

Marcie walked out onto a backyard patio that could have entertained a dozen people or more. Right now, it was just her platform under the night sky.

The song could be heard through the kitchen and out to the patio. Marcie let the tension of the case leave her, as she moved in time to a melody that promised romance, stolen kisses and quiet moments.

And then, the pang returned, that heartsickness that she honestly thought, or hoped she could outrun or out-think, and it was there again, haunting her heart, like a ghost roaming in a deserted house, making it its own.

"V, where are you?" she whispered, looking forlornly at the stars that would not give up their secrets of Velma's whereabouts to her. "Why did you leave me?"

_'Why were things becoming so difficult for me lately?'_ she pondered, dejectedly. _'I can't talk to Velma for, I don't know how long, and if that wasn't bad enough, Dad hates my guts for some reason, and I've been banned from the park. Wonderful.'_

She needed an escape from this, so she closed her eyes and drifted in the memories she did have with Velma when they were together. Memories of school, home, hobbies, and secrets of feminine childhoods shared.

Her body relaxed, and the weight of her problems lifted, if just for tonight. Those memories were her balm, her salve to heal her soul from within, and with a chuckle, she felt her spirit float in spite of her troubles.

She gently wrapped one of her arms around her midsection and held the other arm out in the swaying pantomime positions of someone dancing close to her partner. It would look strange to be dancing alone under the stars, but she decided that this was practice for the day when she and Velma saw each other again.

She looked again at those diamond stars, hanging in the velvet. Let them keep their secrets, she thought. Velma would be back. It was going to happen. If it took days or years, it was going to happen.

"You're not going to get away from me that easily, Velma Dinkley. You and I _are_ gonna have this dance when I see you again, V," Marcie said with a solemn smile. "I promise."


End file.
